Monday, May 9, 2016

Finally, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has risen to fight for the masses cry on spam SMS and calls that Telcos usually bombard our mobile phones with.

From a report by Leadership, NCC made it clear that they would fine any network operator that sends unsolicited messages or calls to its subscribers a sum of N5 million. The regulatory body introduced a general unique number which is to be used to opt out of all the marketing text messages. NCC said they will sanction any telco that refuses to abide or implement the shortcode of 2442 for subscribers to opt-in to the “Do Not Disturb” (DND) database which stops spam marketing messages on or before the 30th of June. According to the report.
"NCC in a letter dated April 19, 2016 warned MTN, Airtel, Globacom, Etisalat, Smile, Natcoms (Ntel), Visafone, Starcomms, Multilinks, Gamjitel, Danjay Telecoms, Gicell Wireless Ltd and Megatech Engineering Ltd that they should implement the DND restricting telemarketing their MSISDNs including the use of web-based solutions as opt-out measures.
The regulator said it shall be mandatory for mobile operators to create sufficient awareness to its subscribers on the existence of the DND on their networks; that they shall also comply with the quarterly and reporting template prescribed by the NCC to ensure feedback and compliance".

Thanks to NCC for the wonderful works they are now doing.

Meanwhile, NCC has not totally scrapped unsolicited messages as they have issued that generated text messages must comply with the 8am to 8pm stipulation (12 hour period), but the interesting aspect of this whole drama is that subscribers now have the option to easily opt-out of any messages they don’t want which is cool if you ask me.

Hurray, finally God has answered our prayers. This people do call me up to 10times in a day. When i'm expecting an important Call at times, i run out of the bathroom to pick my call just to discover that it is 2555 that is calling me. The most annoying part is when I pick d call, they will start to speak hausa